Introduction

An established media property, Dr A. B. Granville, answered an invitation to visit the fledgling Bournemouth in 1841. A respected society medical man, well-published, his reputation flowed through a network featuring the royal family and aristocracy. He gave a positive speech about the site’s convalescent qualities. The press reported this. Later, he devoted a chapter to Bournemouth in one of his books about spas. His involvement in communications about the site contributed to its success. People came. Prosperity grew. History approved. Yet a close comparison between the building plan he recommended with that which the investors constructed suggests a divergence. The investors may have made use more of his name than his message. In fact, his name may have become the message. 

Did Dr Granville arrive at a difficult time?

A well-kept secret or something darker

Dr Granville’s visit in 1841 coincided with the launch of a commercial resort sponsored by the Gervis Tapps family, local proprietors. He expressed his surprise about the site’s existence, since, during an earlier research trip to the region, he had missed it. A conspiracy of silence seemed possible, people affecting to be ‘ignorant of its existence as a new and formidable rival on the coast’. A dark hint occurred: the developers’ ‘very first beginning a few years back proved a failure, until two or three other spirited and judicious proprietors stepped in to the rescue’. He perhaps referred to earlier work conducted for personal reasons by the Tregonwell family.  His perspective amounted to this: ‘if you build it, they may not come’. Use of his name, an established media property, would play an important part in the early success of Victorian Bournemouth.

The ‘gentlemen’ investors

Dr Granville described his sponsors as gentlemen from Christchurch, Poole and Blandford. The term ‘gentleman’ might often apply to investors, that is to say monied men interested in making further gains, but through the device of unearned income, financial not physical involvement. The Tapps family may have funded part of the Bath Hotel’s construction, but their business plan depended perhaps more on outside capital secured through leases on land made available for building. It seems likely that those paying Dr Granville’s travel expenses, including the ‘lavish dinner’ at the Bath Hotel, may have consisted of outside investors whose concern about getting a return on their money had caused them to seek a second opinion. 

Different ways to go

Some anxiety about the resort’s feasibility may have surfaced. William Gordon’s grandiose settlement further up the valley had stuttered into liquidation. Early advertisements tried to sell Marine Village properties ‘off-plan’. A timber supplier to the Gervis Tapps development had gone bankrupt because he did not receive payment. In short, perhaps a repeat of the earlier problems mentioned by Granville seemed a possibility to those who had money in the project. The investors may have reached a fork in the road, where an alternate direction perhaps became appealing to some of their number. Nobody could do anything to change the physical characteristics of the area, but who would want to do that? The question lay in how to make the most of the area’s main points: friendly climate, adjacency to the sea. In marketing terms, therefore, they had to think about the best angle.

The marketing crossroads: health or happiness?

The two ‘positioning’ options

On the one hand, the settlement might aim at those who had health concerns, the solution for which lay in spa visits. Only affluent people could do this. Travel and lengthy stays away from home required incomes independent of labour. A luxury product, its proposition would offer ‘a better place to live longer’. Success here depended on getting enough affluent people to operate the site at a profitable level, but, in normal conditions, healthy people outnumber those needing convalescence.

Another way lay in looking at things from a different angle. Lucozade’s repositioning offers a good illustration. Once drunk by sick children to get well, the brand’s marketing looked towards adults who wanted to stay well. It went from a medicinal to a life-style product. This second proposition would now run along the lines of  ‘have fun while staying healthy’. Its escapism would have greater appeal than reminders about pulmonary problems.

Marketing impact on product design

These alternatives would affect the resort’s built environment in different ways. For the luxury, ‘live longer’, approach available acreage on the site would host a few high-status buildings. Their siting would take best advantage of the space, the best angle for breezes and so on. The settlement would remain a health village. The alternative strategy lay in a dash for cash, where construction covered the majority of the acreage. Their media property, Dr Granville, gave his sponsors a warning against this. ‘You must not let in strangers and brick-and-mortar contractors, to build up whole streets of lodging houses, or parades, and terraces interminable, in straight lines…’  Such a design would nullify the site’s essential qualities, yet the decision went against his advice. As the investors looked at Bournemouth they perhaps saw the commercial promise of Brighton or Bath. The question arises, therefore, as to why investors wanted Dr Granville’s involvement.

The name is the message

Dr Granville operated as a media property for early Victorian Bournemouth, but perhaps not quite as he envisaged. His speech and his book sent the message he wanted. His name, however, seemed to become detached from his message. In part, this began through book reviews carried in the press. Soon, it became a useful endorsement for advertisements. Within a year, an estate agent referred to the book’s subject as ‘the beauties of Bournemouth’ while advertising one of the marine villas. An advertisement referred to Granville’s book as a way to reassure on values of the property assets underpinning an attempt to sell a tontine. Even promotion for the Sanatorium, built to accommodate working-class invalids, used the book as a reference. In media terms, therefore, Dr Granville became that ‘famous medical bloke who tells us which products to use’. He became almost the Victorian equivalent of today’s ‘as seen on television’.

After his contribution, the built environment underwent a scale of unrestrained development. Within fifteen years, the site required centralised control in the form of the Improvement Commission. Letters to the press complained about thin walls and rows of brick and mortar. Dr Granville’s nightmare became reality: the brick-and-mortar merchants acquired a good foothold. In a way, however, none of that mattered. Investors had solicited Dr Granville’s input because they perhaps understood his power as a media property. That his message bore little relevance to the site’s future seems not to have reduced the endorsement value of his name alone. Commercial people saw value in the association. His involvement in the growth of early Victorian Bournemouth, tangential but central, provides an interesting study of marketing communications at work.

Takeaway

The involvement of a media property, Dr Granville and his reputation, as part of promotion and communication for Bournemouth’s early settlement provides a good example of authority endorsement at work. Those sponsoring his visit may have not wanted to hear what he said so much as the positive associations of his name. They wanted him not as the messenger, but as the message.

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References

• A. B. Granville, The Spas of England. Southern Spas, London, 1841, pp. 512 (Bournemouth section). Available via Google Books. 
• Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Monday 28 May, 1838, p. 4 (early auction advertisements for Westover Villas).
• Dorset County Chronicle, Thursday 05 July, 1838, p. 1 (five unfinished villas for sale).
• Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Monday 24 August, 1840, p. 4 (Gordon still hiring workmen).
• Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Monday 26 April, 1841, p. 3 (sale of Gordon’s building materials).
• Globe, Monday 12 July, 1841, p. 1 (advertisement for Gordon’s 1500 acres where six villas ‘are all but completed’).
• London Evening Standard, Wednesday 23 May, 1838, p. 1 (bankruptcy of timber merchants, £320 owing from William Gervis Tapps for timber used at four of the Westover Villas).
• Globe, Wednesday 07 July, 1841, p. 3 (advertisement for Spas of England mentioning Bournemouth).
• Morning Post, Saturday 31 July, 1841, p. 6 (review of Spas of England, mentioning Bournemouth).
• Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Monday 16 May, 1842, p. 4 (letting advertisement for 16 Westover Villas: ‘Please to read Dr. Granville’s opinion on the beauties of Bournemouth.’).
• Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Saturday 13 October, 1849, p. 1 (advertisement for Samuel Bayly’s tontine included a reference to Spas of England).
• Poole & Dorset Herald, Thursday 26 May, 1853, p. 8 (‘long ‘rows’ of brick and mortar’).
• Poole & Dorset Herald, Thursday 27 July, 1854, p. 7 (thin walls in lodging houses).
• Poole & Dorset Herald, Thursday 02 September, 1852, p. 4 (support for Sanatorium project includes mention of Spas of England).